


a briar rose by any other name would smell as sweet

by MisasBiggestFan



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Fairy Tale Elements, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, and asexual author, asexual kurogane, if you also like gushy kurofai content and vampire romances then youre in the right place, think sleeping beauty x literally any old vampire romance, this is SO self indulgent!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisasBiggestFan/pseuds/MisasBiggestFan
Summary: Kurogane is a rough-and-tumble vampire hunter with a romantic streak he won't admit to, dedicated to protecting the innocent. Fai is a vampire with a castle full of secrets and a curse to sleep for eternity, unless he can be awoken by his True Love...--“Sleeping beauty, huh?” Fai said. “Yes, I suppose that must be how this all seems to you. A dashing knight breaks into an abandoned castle and wakes up the cursed prince with a kiss.”“I didn’t kiss you,” Kurogane argued as Fai set a pancake in front of him. Fai smiled down at him. When his hand left the plate, Kurogane noticed that he had filed down his claws until they were square little fingernail shapes again. This is weird, he thought. This is a weird vampire.
Relationships: Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane
Comments: 21
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

Kurogane didn’t try it because he _believed_ in true love, of _course_. He tried it because he was a vampire hunter and killing vampires was his job. So if there was a potential vampire threat, he had to assess it and see if it should be killed. 

That was why, when he had entered the abandoned castle and found the glass coffin under 10 feet of water, with the pretty vampire man inside, he had turned the crank next to the pool and brought the coffin up to the surface and opened it. That’s why, when he read the plaque on the coffin that stated that the man could be woken if he tasted the blood of his true love, Kurogane took out his knife.

 _Not_ because he believed in true love. But because he had a job to do. And that was it.

He couldn’t help but notice, however, as he held the cut on his finger above the mouth of the sleeping man and waited for a drop to make its way down the side of his thumb to land on the man’s lips, that the man was pretty. He was _very_ pretty. He had long yellow hair and pink lips and a silky black patch over one eye, and he was dressed in a stiff, black burial suit. And if true loves existed and this wasn’t just some sort of vampire trick (because it totally was) this man’s true love would have been a lucky person.

The results were almost instantaneous. The man’s body jerked violently and his uncovered right eye flicked open wide-yellow and slitted. Kurogane stepped back in shock as the man gasped out loud and choked, mouth open, the red of Kurogane’s blood lining the line where his lips met. He flung himself upright into a sitting position.

Kurogane stepped back, his hand tight on the hilt of his sword, ready to pull it out.

Then, the man’s eye focused. Kurogane watched him find him and fix him there with a wide, horrified stare.

“What did you do?!” He cried.

“I didn’t do anything,” Kurogane replied defensively. He looked the vampire up and down cautiously.

Meanwhile, the vampire seemed to be coming to terms with being awake. His eye was wide and terrified and searching. Quickly, he looked away and put a hand to his lips, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep Kurogane from seeing his tongue dart out to swipe the rest of the blood off of his mouth. He seemed shell-shocked.

He was even prettier awake. But true loves weren’t real. This was some kind of trick, that was all. 

“Why are you here,” the man said after a minute spent trying to compose himself, his gaze anywhere but Kurogane.

“I’m a vampire hunter,” Kurogane explained. “Heard there was a vampire.”

The man’s yellow eye slid back up to Kurogane’s face now hesitantly.

“Where did you hear that.”

“The people who give me orders. Where else?”

“You have to leave.” The man held out a hand now, as if trying to keep Kurogane at a distance. “Please.”

“That’s now how this works,” Kurogane growled and stepped forward. 

He had to admit, he was feeling a little… Confused? This wasn’t what vampires were usually like. They didn’t usually have very lengthy conversations with him. Vampires were monsters with an insatiable thirst for blood. They weren’t too chatty, and they weren’t too pretty, either.

“Then you’ll kill me?” The vampire asked and he sounded a little more… Uh, _eager_ than Kurogane was used to. He made a face.

“You almost sound hopeful,” he said.

“You can do it,” the man said pitifully. “But please do it fast. I don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Suddenly, Kurogane felt a little unsure about killing this guy.

“Uh, now, hold on,” he said.

This _really_ was not how this usually worked. Not even a little.

“That’s the only option,” the man said. He was desperate, both hands on the edge of his coffin, leaning over it towards Kurogane now. His hands were pretty, with slight fingers and small little claws at the end of each one. “You have to kill me. Or I suppose you could leave and I’ll put myself back to sleep.”

Kurogane stepped back uncomfortably.

“What kind of a vampire are you,” he said suspiciously. “Is this some kind of joke?”

The man pressed his lips together frustratedly, but he didn’t answer. Kurogane had to admit he didn’t quite know what to do.

“I won’t kill someone who’s not dangerous,” Kurogane said hesitantly.

“I’m dangerous,” the man said. “Quite dangerous, in fact. Very dangerous.”

“Pfft. Forgive me for not believing _that_ , sleeping beauty.”

The man made a face, his mouth pushing up into a little pout. Kurogane wasn’t sure if he was confused or offended.

“I guess if you put yourself back to sleep, I can just tell the vampire hunters’ association that there’s nothing here, though,” Kurogane offered. He cocked his head curiously and examined the coffin again, giving it another once over. “How do you do that anyway? Is it drugs??”

“It’s magic,” the man said, as if to say ‘duh’. 

“Magic?” Kurogane said. “No one has enough magic to do something like that.”

The man’s mouth twitched into the smallest smile, like he was laughing at Kurogane.

“Some people do,” he said.

Kurogane scowled at him.

“What’s your name?” He said.

The man hesitated, like he didn’t want to say. Kurogane watched him consider it and finally give in.

“Fai D Flourite.”

Fai. It suited him. A pretty name for a pretty person. Kurogane hated himself for actually thinking this, like some kind of sap. He forced his brain back on track and tried to think of a plan.

“How does this magic work, then?” He said. “Well, come on, make it happen. Go to sleep.”

Fai’s smile widened a little at this, too.

“You can’t just do it whenever, silly,” he said, hesitantly teasing, like he was testing out the waters, getting his bearings back. “I’m going to have to prepare for it.”

“What? How long?”

“A week.”

“A week!”

“Magic takes time.”

“Then I’ll stay here for the week to keep an eye on you.”

Fai’s face dropped in a second.

“Now, hold on,” he said.

“I’m not leaving a vampire to his own devices,” Kurogane said. “I came up here with a job to do. I’m going to make sure you don’t hurt anyone.”

“Then send someone _else_ to play prison guard, not you _,_ ” Fai insisted.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re in _danger_ with me here.”

Kurogane frowned. His eyes wanted to flick down to the plaque on the side of the glass coffin, just under Fai’s hands, that proclaimed Kurogane his true love, but he controlled himself.

“Yeah, that’s totally convincing me to leave you here and send someone else.” He rolled his eyes.

Fai pouted again and Kurogane tried not to find it cute. 

“That is a bad idea,” he said. “You’ll be in danger.”

“I think I can handle myself.”

They squared off for a few seconds and Kurogane folded his arms. Finally, Fai looked away and sighed.

“You won’t let me convince you?”

“No.”

“Fine.”

After a minute, Fai began to try to climb out of his coffin. He folded his legs up and put his hands on the side and started trying to climb, one leg dangling over the side, but it was easy to see he wasn’t gonna make it. The coffin was too high and the pool was too big, so if Fai didn’t jump for it, he’d fall right into the water, which was moldy and still with age.

Stiffly, and with the words ‘true love’ bouncing around his skull like bullets, Kurogane stepped forward and offered Fai his arm. Fai looked him up and down anxiously, and then placed one clawed hand on Kurogane’s forearm. Kurogane noticed he was shaking, his whole body trembling.

“I don’t think I can stand,” he admitted quietly.

“Just try,” Kurogane replied. He reached out his other hand, taking it off where it had been resting at the hilt of his sword at his waist. “I’ll catch you.”

Fai studied Kurogane anxiously and took his other hand and placed it in Kurogane’s.

Fai’s hands were soft and his fingers were slight. The tips of his claws pressed into Kurogane’s palm just a little. Kurogane tried not to think about the phrase ‘true love’.

Then, Fai shifted his weight onto Kurogane and tried to haul himself out of the coffin. As soon as more leg was out of the coffin than in, he began to fall, reaching and missing the edge of the pool. Kurogane shifted fast and snatched Fai out of the air, grabbing him around the middle and hauling him over to the other side.

They both tumbled to the floor, Kurogane miscalculating their combined weight. Kurogane hit the floor hard, his shoulders and back thudding against the tile. Fai on top of him was surprisingly warm and Kurogane caught a whiff of something-flowers? Dried flowers? And Sugar? As they fell.

Once on the ground, Fai scrambled to get off of Kurogane, like Kurogane was some sort of dangerous substance he had to wash off his hands and clothes as soon as possible.

Fai didn’t get far. He tried to stand and fell again, collapsing onto the ground in a heap.

“How long was I in there,” he gasped.

“Hell if I know,” Kurogane said, who was in the process of standing up and dusting himself off.

Kurogane approached Fai and offered his hand again.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you to a place you can sit down.”

Fai looked up at him suspiciously from the floor. Kurogane was starting to get a little mad. He didn’t _get_ this vampire.

“Well,” Kurogane huffed. “I don’t _bite_ .” He shook his hand at him impatiently. “Or do you just _want_ to be sitting here in a heap on the floor.”

Nervously, Fai reached up and took Kurogane’s hand and allowed Kurogane to haul him to his feet. Kurogane threw Fai’s arm around his shoulder and grabbed him around the waist and tried not to think too hard about that sweet sugar smell and how nice it felt to have Fai so close to him. This is ridiculous, he thought angrily. All this true love nonsense is rotting my brain.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Fai said quietly, his face turned to Kurogane’s face. His breath was hot on Kurogane’s neck.

“I’ve fought things scarier than you while half-asleep,” Kurogane grumbled. “So excuse me if I’m not shaking in my boots. Now will you tell me where the nearest couch in this place is so I can dump you off already??”

“Um,” Fai said quietly and then he pointed. “Through there.” The room they were in was large and dark, with only the pool and the coffin in the middle, but when Fai pointed it out, Kurogane could see a door in the back, hidden in the dark.

Kurogane hauled Fai towards the door he pointed out, but Fai’s legs gave out more than once and they weren’t making much headway so finally, his face burning, Kurogane reached over wordlessly and scooped Fai up bridal-style and carried him the rest of the way.

He didn’t know why he was so embarrassed to be touching this guy. True love schmoo love, that shit wasn’t real.

But it still embarrassed Kurogane all the way down to his toes.

“You look like a tomato,” Fai said and he smiled a bit more, wider this time. When he smiled and talked like that, Kurogane could see the tips of sharp little canines in his mouth. “Who knew my-” Here, Fai choked a little and had to try again. He was clearly putting a concentrated effort into being cavalier about this. “My _true love_ would be so bashful.”

“I’m not bashful,” Kurogane grumbled, his face heating up more. He practically speed-walked to the door. “And don’t call me your true love.”

“Then what _should_ I call you?”

“My name is Kurogane.”

“Mm.” Fai hummed thoughtfully.

Kurogane ducked inside the door, turning carefully to avoid smacking Fai’s head or legs into the doorframe.

“That’s not a very cute name,” Fai continued. “For someone who blushes so cutely.”

“I’ll drop you,” Kurogane threatened and looked around the room frantically for the couch. He couldn’t take any ribbing from this guy. He’d melt into a hot little puddle.

“Kuro-blush,” Fai said.

“It’s Kuro-GANE,” Kurogane said and hastily made his way to the quickest couch. The room appeared to be some sort of sitting room. It had coffee tables and little couches and a piano in the corner. Everything was covered in dust and some of the pieces of furniture had sheets over them, like they were all ghosts. It was somehow even darker in here than in the room with the pool, which had been pretty dark. He was tempted to throw Fai onto the couch as retribution for the ribbing, but he didn’t know if Fai could actually take it, weak as he seemed to be, so Kurogane set him on the cushions gently and stepped back.

“Thank you, Kuro-blush,” Fai said and smiled up at him sweetly. Kurogane thought he might die on the spot, Fai was so gorgeous.

“Kuro-GANE,” Kurogane said again, gruffer this time, trying to look as angry as possible.

“Ahh,” Fai said and his smile grew. “Kuro-GRUMP.”

“I am _perfectly_ capable of killing you right here and now!” Kurogane shot back, arms folded. Fai just looked up at him and laughed lazily. 

“Yes, you are,” he agreed, that lazy, sweet smile on his face. Kurogane’s eyes slitted suspiciously. Fai’d been so upset just minutes before, insisting that there was danger and Kurogane had to leave, but now it was like he’d never been anything but relaxed his entire life. What a faker. To anyone else, Fai’s emotional shift might not have raised any red flags, but Kurogane knew to be on guard, and the lie was clear as day to him.

Kurogane found a chair across from Fai’s couch and sat on it, waving away the mushroom cloud of dust that rose around him.

Fai sat up tenderly, massaging his aching legs with weak hands.

“I would offer you a meal,” Fai said. “If I could. But by the looks of this place, I’ve been asleep for too long to have any food left in the kitchen.”

“Why were you asleep in the first place?”

Fai watched his own hands as he rubbed his calf through his black slacks. His yellow eye avoided Kurogane’s face. 

“I put myself there,” he admitted.

“Why?”

Fai looked away again, his gaze roaming the room as if considering what he should and shouldn’t say. Geez, this guy was tight lipped.

“Well??” Kurogane prodded, hoping that by rushing him, he might hear more of the truth.

“The truth is…” Fai said carefully. “I just don’t like the taste of most blood.”

“Okay…?”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to drink blood either, now would you?” Here, Fai laughed casually, like it was a joke. He smiled cordially at Kurogane. “So I put myself to sleep instead. You can’t be hungry if you’re asleep, after all.”

Kurogane stared at Fai, trying to process this.

“You’re kidding?”

“No.”

Fai’s eye lingered on Kurogane for a second, his smile dead on his face. 

“Now I have some questions for _you_. Why did you wake me??”

“I told you before,” Kurogane said. “I’m a vampire hunter. I needed to know if you were safe, if this was some sort of trap.”

Fai shook his head.

“Do you really still want to stay?” He finally said.

“I don’t _want_ to, but I am.”

“I’m dangerous to you.”

“You couldn’t kill me if you tried.”

“I’ll hurt you.”

“I’ll stop you.”

“Doesn’t it unsettle you even a little, to know that I haven’t had a meal in who knows how long?”

“The starving to death part is unfortunate, sure.”

“No, no, to know that I want to _drink_ your-” Fai stopped and frowned. “Your, your _blood._ ”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to try.” Kurogane shrugged nonchalantly. “But you couldn’t, if I didn’t want you to. Not only can you not even stand right now, but I’m the strongest vampire hunter in the entire association. No one is a match for me. You aren’t doing jack shit to me that I don’t want you to do. So again, pardon me for my lack of paralyzing fear.”

Fai studied Kurogane. Kurogane watched his eye travel up and down Kurogane’s arms and down to the sword at his waist.

“You _do_ seem prepared,” he conceded.

“I am,” Kurogane replied. “And I’m not leaving until I’m certain you won’t cause any harm.”

Fai bent his knees and leaned over them, staring at Kurogane.

“I thought the vampire hunters killed vampires regardless,” he said. “Indiscriminately.”

“They do,” Kurogane said and looked away, willing the tips of his ears not to go pink. “But I’m not gonna hurt someone who’s helpless. If you’re not causing any harm, I’ll leave you be. When I’m certain there’s no danger here, I’ll tell the hunters association whatever the hell I want to tell them. And they’ll take my word for it.”

Fai watched Kurogane and nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

“Are _you_ not afraid of _me_?” Kurogane said and Fai hummed, thinking.

“No, it’s not that,” he finally said. “I _am._ Afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Well… I’m just... Afraid.”

Fai lounged across the couch, staring at the ceiling, running one clawed hand through yellow hair and for a while, he was silent. Kurogane watched him and tried not to think about how lovely he looked. Earlier, when he was helping him walk, his hand fit perfectly on Fai’s waist. The smell of him lingered in the air around Kurogane. Stretched out on the couch, he looked like a model in a magazine, or a prince in a painting. He didn’t look like a vampire.

Kurogane wanted to ask about the plaque on the coffin, but he didn’t quite know what to say.

“You can take the guest room,” Fai said and Kurogane shook these humiliating thoughts out of his brain. “I won’t be awake for much longer anyway. But you can stay until I go back. If you’re really so adamant.”

“I am,” Kurogane said. “But I’m not leaving you alone. Not while you’re awake.”

Fai continued to stare at the ceiling tiredly.

“Fine,” he said and underneath the false friendliness on his face, he sounded miserable.

“But let me set one thing straight,” Kurogane said and he glowered at Fai until Fai looked back over.

“What is it, Kuro-grump.”

“Kuro-GANE. True loves aren’t real. You would have woken up for anyone.”

Fai studied Kurogane’s face and then he smiled and nodded.

“Agreed, Kuro-chan.”

Kurogane frowned and settled back into his chair and for the rest of the night, he sat across the room from Fai and thought about the phrase ‘true love’. He thought about how beautiful and delicate and tender Fai seemed. How beautiful his face was when he smiled after teasing him. _True love_ , Kurogane thought and his entire body flushed red as he tried to banish thoughts of kissing Fai from his mind.

***

In the morning, Kurogane woke in the stiff chair he hadn’t realized that he’d fallen asleep in to find Fai was gone.

He didn’t need a map of the castle to follow the smell of food and the sounds of clattering, but he might have otherwise-the place was a little bit labyrinthine upon first glance (because what abandoned castles with cute vampires inside weren’t, Kurogane thought spitefully). Luckily, it didn’t take long to get where he was going and he only took a handful of wrong turns.

Fai was standing in front of a stove in a huge, industrial kitchen, frying something in a pan. He was leaning on a cane in one hand, a spatula in the other. Kurogane stood in the doorway until Fai looked up. The black silk eyepatch was still tied over his left eye, but he’d changed out of his burial suit. Now, he was in a light blue blouse with a collar line decorated in stitchwork and a pair of black pants. Pretty, Kurogane’s brain said. Shut up, Kurogane replied.

“What are you doing,” he said. Fai smiled patiently.

“Please have a seat, Kuro-chan, I’ll be finished in just a minute,” he said.

“ _Kuro-chan_ ,” Kurogane grumbled under his breath, displeased, and searched for something to reply. “Whatever, _sleeping beauty_ ,” he retorted. It wasn’t his best comeback. It was probably actually rather pitiful, but cut him some slack, he’d just woken up.

Fai laughed and Kurogane, feeling a little suspicious, pulled out a chair at the metal table in the center of the room and watched Fai turn off all his burners and pile one more pancake onto a stack that he hadn’t noticed until now.

“Sleeping beauty, huh?” Fai said as he brought the pancakes to the table. “Yes, I suppose that must be how this all seems to you. A dashing knight breaks into an abandoned castle and wakes up the cursed prince with a kiss.”

“I didn’t kiss you,” Kurogane argued as Fai set a pancake in front of him. Fai smiled down at him. When his hand left the plate, Kurogane noticed that he had filed down his claws until they were square little fingernail shapes again. This is weird, he thought. This is a weird vampire.

“You’re blushing again, Kuro-cutie,” Fai said and then he turned back to the counter to bring the rest of the condiments.

“Hold on,” Kurogane said and he stood up. “You sit down. I can’t sit here and watch a dude with a cane try to carry all this.”

“Aww, Kuro-gentleman!” Fai smiled at Kurogane as he stood up and passed him. “You really _are_ a dashing knight.”

“Sit down,” Kurogane grumbled and resisted the urge to stomp on his own foot to punish himself for the inevitable blushing.

Fai sat at the chair opposite Kurogane, which wasn’t too far considering the table was rather short, and Kurogane brought over the syrup and condiments and then he joined him.

“I thought you said there wasn’t any food.”

“I found some old food storage in the basement, the kind of stuff that doesn’t go bad.”

“What, so you just decided to make some sort of big meal? Why go to the trouble??”

“Why?” Fai said distractedly. “Does being doted on embarrass you?”

Kurogane frowned deeper.

“I’m not embarrassed. I just hardly think it’s necessary.”  
“We can add that to the list of things that embarrasses Kuro-pyon… Cute nicknames, sweeping people off their feet, and receiving gifts.”

“I’m _not_ embarrassed.”

Fai looked over at Kurogane now and smiled.

“You should eat your pancakes,” he said. “I slaved over a hot stove, you know.”

Kurogane cut into his pancake.

It was good, surprisingly so. Nothing about this vampire hunting trip had been in the least bit normal, and eating good food cooked by a vampire was just another surprise in the long list of surprises.

“Why do you know how to cook?” Kurogane asked. Vampires didn’t eat regular food and wouldn’t have any need to know how to cook something. Fai studied him and took his time before answering.

“It just comes easily to me,” he finally said, which wasn’t a particularly detailed answer. He was starting to expect answers like that from this guy.

Kurogane watched Fai run his finger around the rim of the glass set before him and thought about blood. Was Fai hungry? For _his_ blood? Would there come a point where he would go nuts?

Vampires were monstrous creatures who hurt people and he stopped them. Beginning and end of story. Seeing normal, arrestingly human Fai was strange. Kurogane almost didn’t believe he _was_ a vampire, but he knew there must be more to this story. 

Then, to Kurogane’s surprise, Fai served _himself_ a pancake plate.

Kurogane stared curiously.

“I didn’t think vampires could eat.”

Fai smiled tightly.

“I cooked it, didn’t I?” He said. “I can have whatever I like.” 

Hmm, Kurogane thought.

“I’ve never met a vampire like you,” Kurogane finally admitted. Fai looked up from where he was slicing up his pancake. 

“Is that so,” he said.

“The ones I usually hunt are more…” Kurogane tried to put a word to it. “Feral. Most of them are feral.”

“I can be feral,” Fai said and Kurogane rolled his eyes.

“You cook pancakes-you don’t know the meaning of the word feral.”

“Kuro-fearless,” Fai said.

Kurogane narrowed his eyes at Fai.

“You’re trying to figure out why I cook pancakes instead of acting like a wild animal.”

“I am.”

“Well, when you figure it out, run it by me, hmm?” Fai took a bite of his pancake off his fork. Kurogane was starting to think that Fai wouldn’t share a single true thing about himself unless it was absolutely wrung out of him.

They ate together in silence for the next few minutes before Kurogane started to notice Fai looking a little green. He dropped his silverware a little shakily.

“What’s wrong?” Kurogane said, but before Fai could respond, he heaved a little and clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh, shit,” Kurogane said and Fai bolted up from the table and barely made it to the sink before he started retching.

Kurogane stood as well, because he felt like he ought to do _something_ , and it occurred to him that maybe Fai would want someone to hold his hair back, as both of his hands were occupied white-knuckling the counter top and his hair was long enough to fall over his face, but that also suddenly seemed too intimate and before Kurogane could make his decision, Fai was already wiping off his mouth.

“What happened to you??” Kurogane said as Fai turned around weakly.

“Food poisoning,” Fai replied unconvincingly. “The pancake mix must have been bad.” Kurogane watched as Fai made his way tiredly back to the table to collapse in his chair and push his plate away from himself bitterly. This was obviously untrue, because Kurogane was not also throwing up into the sink, and also, it was a well known fact that vampires couldn’t eat.

“Kay, well,” Kurogane said and he sat back down as well, awkwardly. “No more people food for you, I guess.”

  
  


***

After the ordeal of breakfast, Fai began to work on his spell to put himself back to sleep. Kurogane watched from the corner as he bent over a dusty desk in another one of the castle’s rooms, mixing things together and writing runes. 

Kurogane had a hundred thousand questions and Fai didn’t seem eager to answer any of them. There was no way he’d put himself to sleep because he didn’t _like_ the taste of blood. That was absurd. So it was totally a lie. He also didn’t know how long Fai would be able to stand being awake and hungry. Was being asleep really better than just being dead at that point? Why did he live in the world's biggest, emptiest castle?? What had happened to his other eye? How could he be a vampire and still be so tender? 

He’d never even asked for Kurogane’s blood, hadn’t taken it when he’d fallen asleep last night. 

Plus… True love?? True love?!?! True love?!?1?1?1?1?!?!??!?!?!?!?!

(Kurogane pushed this particular question as far out of the way as possible and stamped on it with both feet.)

After a while, Fai set aside what he was doing and dug around in one of his drawers until he pulled out a handful of small arches. Then, he walked over to Kurogane, still leaning a little on his cane due to his underused legs, and handed him half of the arches and instructed him to set them up around the room. Confused, Kurogane followed his instructions.

When they were finished, the room was covered in little arches.

“What part of the spell is this?” Kurogane asked while Fai dug around in a closet.

“Oh, it’s not,” he said as he straightened up out of the closet and turned around. In his hands were two croquet mallets and two small balls. “It’s a game!”

Kurogane’s face fell.

“I don’t like mini golf,” he argued.

“Why?” Fai said.

The truth was he was bad at it but he kind of didn't want to say that. 

“The sticks are too short for me,” he said instead, which wasn’t entirely a lie. “Besides, don’t you have magic to be doing?”

“It has to sit now,” Fai said simply. “Good magic takes time. It’s like eating something directly out of the oven-you have to let it rest first, you know, or it’ll burn your tongue.”

Fai approached him then, leaning on his own mallet, and he stopped once he was next to Kurogane. He set the mallet on the ground next to Kurogane’s feet and sized up how much more it needed until it could comfortably reach his hands and then, the air around the mallet seemed to warp. Fai raised it up with both hands and pulled it apart until it became longer and then, he presented it on both palms to Kurogane, smiling.

“Fixed it,” he said cheerfully. Kurogane tried to hide the way he thought his eyes were going to pop out of his skull.

He knew magic was a thing, but it wasn’t common. He’d never seen someone just… _Manipulate_ an object like that.

“That’s-” He said. “Wow.” Gingerly, he took the mallet out of Fai’s hands. “That’s...”

“Come play now,” Fai said.

“I-Okay,” Kurogane said, still feeling speechless, as Fai dragged him over to the little hoops they had set up and before he knew it, he was doing his best not to miss them with the little balls. He wasn’t doing great. Fai was already several hoops ahead of him.

“You’re astoundingly bad at this,” Fai mused from across the room where he was putting all his weight onto his mallet.

“Kay, alright, thank you,” Kurogane grumbled as he aimed and missed yet again. 

“Hold on, Kuro-pii,” Fai said and then, suddenly, he was behind Kurogane, his hands on Kurogane’s hands, his arms around Kurogane’s arms. Kurogane was, in seconds, the color of a beet. “You just gotta hit it…” Fai helped Kurogane swing the club back slowly and forward slowly. “Gently.” They landed the barest tap on the ball, which sent it rolling lazily across the rug and through the hole he had been aiming for. Then, Fai released Kurogane’s hands and backed up and Kurogane had to deal with the fact that every inch of his body where Fai had touched was on fire. “Now you try it,” Fai said and he walked around and kicked the ball back to Kurogane. Still flustered and low key seeing stars, Kurogane swung the golf club and blasted the ball directly into the opposite wall, where it settled itself confidently right inside the drywall.

***

Fai had _so_ many games hidden throughout the castle. He dragged Kurogane from game to game. They played poker (which Fai was good at), basketball (which Fai was bad at), and a whole collection of other games, like sorry, soccer, tic-tac-toe, monopoly, Mario Kart, and chess. Occasionally, Fai would go back to the room with the desk, where he would check on his concoction and add things, but then it was right back to the games. Kurogane was starting to get a little bored of it.

“Can you not sit still for two minutes?” Kurogane said.

“Where’s the fun in that,” he replied, one little fang pressing into his bottom lip thoughtfully as he carefully placed his battleships on his board.

“Where’s the fun in board games to begin with,” Kurogane huffed.

“Hmm? So what does Kuro-sama do for fun then?”

“I dunno. Sword fight. Read manga.”

Fai looked at him apologetically over the top of his battleship board.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any manga here.”

Kurogane didn’t answer. He folded his arms.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t like Mario Kart, though. Everyone likes Mario Kart,” Fai continued.

“It’s fine. Are _you_ telling me your main hobby is cramming in as many games as humanly possible in one day?”

Fai shrugged. He was turning one plastic battleship in his fingers now.

“It’s good to distract yourself, you know,” he said.

“From what.”

Fai smiled at him and then, to his surprise, he leaned over the table and booped him on the nose with the battleship. Kurogane was so shocked, he didn’t even snap at him for it.

“You’re so funny, Kuro-sama, really,” he said, smiling, and then he plopped his battleship down and said, “now, bomb A3!!”

Kurogane frowned at him.

“It’s a miss,” he said.

Fai leaned back in his chair dramatically and sighed pitifully.

“Shame,” he said and he eyed Kurogane playfully. “Your turn.”

Kurogane looked down at his board, where he had crammed all his ships into one corner with the hope of ending the game sooner, and then it clicked. Fai was probably distracting himself from drinking Kurogane’s blood. That had to be it, because no way he wasn’t hungry. It was easy for Kurogane to _forget_ he was a vampire because he just acted so human. He was so pretty and delicate and graceful and funny and normal. (That was a normal list of things to think about someone, Kurogane thought. We’re not soulmates.) Anyway. It was just easy to forget that Fai drank blood. And that it’d been a while since he’d had any. And Kurogane had a lot of it. That was it, what Fai was distracting himself from.

This was a little chilling to realize, but before he could realize it for much longer, Fai landed a bomb on one of his ships, and then very quickly, all of his ships, and then, he was back to choosing a new game.

***

At the end of the night, Fai took Kurogane to his guest room, where Kurogane felt safe enough sleeping in now that he was reasonably convinced that Fai wasn’t going to go berserker in the night on any innocent passerbys in the village below.

The room was big and nice and the closet was full of clothes, though old and dusty, that might fit Kurogane so he could change in the morning.

“You’ll have to go out for groceries tomorrow,” Fai said as he smoothed off the bed, his face hidden by hair. “If you want breakfast.”

“You’ll have to come down with me,” Kurogane said.

Fai stiffened a little, but continued straightening the sheets. He faced away from Kurogane.

“Of course I will,” he said after a beat, a tense smile in his voice.

Kurogane hesitated, and then spoke.

“You’re worried about hurting someone down there,” he said.

Fai whirled around now, tension in his shoulders, but smiling and wiping dust off his hands.

“There you go!” He said loudly. “Clean bed! I’ll just be in the other room!” And then, he strode past Kurogane for the door.

Kurogane blocked him.

“You know why I can’t leave you here alone,” he said.

Fai’s face pinched.

“I didn’t ask to be left alone, now did I, Kuro-sama,” he said. “Now, if you’ll please-”

“I’m not going to let anything happen down there.” There was a pause in the conversation, a lull, while Fai thought up his next argument and Kurogane lost himself just a little bit in the pinkness of his mouth. Fai’s eye was studying his face, his own mouth. Kurogane’s heart thudded and he leaned down a little, just a little-and immediately, Fai snapped backwards, jumping a whole foot. Kurogane pulled back then as well, alarmed at Fai’s reaction.

There was a beat and Fai looked at the floor and didn’t breathe.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Kurogane said awkwardly. What _had_ he been doing then, he challenged himself embarrassedly. The idea rose to his mind that maybe, some part of him wanted to be closer to Fai. Some part of him spent a lot of time looking at Fai’s lips. Some part of him had been leaning into Fai, waiting for him to reach back.

Fuck, did he really think they were gonna kiss?!

“You didn’t,” Fai said, uncharacteristically sharply, and then, he practically ran past Kurogane and out the door.

***

In the morning, Kurogane woke up and changed into a pair of clothes from the wardrobe. Everything inside was white and blue, which wasn’t really Kurogane’s colors, but after some digging, he found a black tshirt and jeans that would fit him, and then, he waited out in the hall for Fai so they could walk down to the village together.

At the castle door, Fai hesitated. Kurogane looked at him from the other side of the door and gestured.

“Well?” He said.

“It’s been a long time,” Fai admitted. He worried the needlework on today’s blue blouse.

“It’s just this once,” Kurogane said. “We won’t come out again.”

Fai placed a hand on the doorframe and leaned against it. He wasn’t looking at Kurogane’s eyes.

Kurogane wanted to bring up last night, the conversation they’d almost had about Fai’s fears of entering the town, about why Fai jumped ten feet in the air when Kurogane had leaned into him. He wanted to pick apart why this vampire didn’t want to hurt people so bad that he’d lock himself up. But he didn’t know how to breach the topic, not when it had gone so swimmingly last time. So instead, he just said, “if you don’t hurry up, we’re going to have a problem.”

Fai steeled himself visibly and stepped past the door frame and then, the two began to walk.

Kurogane knew this didn’t make any sense, but it might calm Fai to know that Kurogane was armed, so he put a hand on his hip casually, pulling back his cloak and revealing the sword hanging from the belt around his waist. He didn’t think Fai would acknowledge it, but apparently, Kurogane was more obvious than he realized.

Fai looked at the sword and back up at Kurogane.

“Such a knight in shining armor,” he said and forced a smile. “You’re so ready to protect me, aren’t you, Kuro-pii.”

Kurogane rolled his eyes and said nothing, because in truth, he didn’t know what to say. And something in his heart was breaking at the fact that they both knew this sword wasn’t for _protecting_ Fai.

But Kurogane would _like_ to protect Fai.

Ugh, no, not this sappy shit again. Kurogane shook his head as if he could shake all the romantic thoughts out.

Down the mountain was something of a climb. Fai clearly wasn’t used to it, and had only recently stopped using his cane, so when he took the occasional spill, Kurogane was right at his side to scoop him up over and over. And every time, Fai ripped himself away from Kurogane at lightning speed to continue walking a few feet away.

Kurogane wanted to tell Fai that he couldn’t hurt Kurogane, not even if he wanted to, but he didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t know how to say that he didn’t want to hurt Fai, either.

During another slip, Kurogane caught Fai in his arms, could smell him and feel his skin, and then Fai bounced away again like he’d been burned.

“Sorry again, Kuro-sama,” he said awkwardly. “I’m still a little clumsy on my feet.”

“You need to be more careful,” Kurogane scolded back, because he didn’t know how to be soft to him. He didn’t fucking know how to do it.

“My hero,” Fai said and if Kurogane didn’t already know him so well, he wouldn’t have been able to tell that Fai was mocking.

A moment passed and then, Fai continued. 

“So you don’t believe in true loves, Kuro-sama.”

Kurogane stiffened a little awkwardly. For a split second, he had an irrational fear that Fai could read minds, and could tell just what Kurogane had been thinking about him this whole time.

“No,” he replied. “I don’t.”

“So you think just about anybody could have woken me up?”

“Hmm. You sound like you _do_ believe in true loves.”

“Mm. Yes and no.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I guess I mean I do think they _exist_. I just don’t think they’re all they’re cracked up to be.”

Kurogane glared down at him, pulling a bush branch back so they both could pass.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of dig.”

Fai laughed.

“No, but how funny it would be if it were.”

Kurogane watched Fai walking in front of him. He watched the way his shoulders bounced up and down as he walked, and the gleam of the light on the knot he’d tied his hair into at the back of his neck.

Who did Fai think was going to wake him up next, if Kurogane was his true love? Would he sleep… Forever?

“When are you going to stop sleeping,” Kurogane said. “When’s the, I dunno, spell expiration date.”

“There is none.”

“So what, you’re just going to sleep until, until the end of the world?”

“No, not quite.”

“So how is it, then.”

“Well, magic and vampire blood can only last so long, can’t they? Eventually, my body will fall apart and I’ll die.”

This was so morbid, Kurogane was left speechless for a little while.

“But you’ll never wake up again.”

“Yup! Not unless-” Fai stopped.

“Not unless what.”

“Nothing.”

“Mage.”

“Well,” Fai was worrying his shirt again. Kurogane wished he could see his face. “Not unless _you_ wake me up again. Then, no. I’ll continue to sleep until I’m dead.”

Kurogane digested this.

“And you’re fine with that.”

“Fine as can be!” Fai turned at him and beamed. “Happy as a clam! Right as rain!”

Kurogane felt uncomfortable.

“I don’t understand how you’re just okay with this.”

“Oh, Kuro-cutie, stop pushing it so hard,” Fai said and a small part of him sounded genuinely irritated. “You’re a _vampire hunter_ , now aren’t you? You kill vampires. _They_ don’t have a right to live, so neither do I. Isn’t that fine?”

Part of Kurogane wanted to throw up.

“That’s fucked,” he said angrily.

“No,” Fai said. “That’s _your_ ideology. And you’re right! You’re perfectly right. But don’t be all offended when I agree with you, that’s what doesn’t make sense.”

Kurogane sort of wanted to punch something. Then, Fai’s ankle twisted and down he went. Kurogane dashed out to catch him and suddenly, they were both on the mountain ground in the dirt, Kurogane on his knees, with Fai in his arms. He glared down at Fai. Fai looked up at him in surprise at the anger on his face, too surprised to leap away again.

“What is it, Kuro-chan,” he said weakly. “You seem so angry.”

“You’re my least favorite vampire I’ve ever met,” Kurogane growled and he shoved Fai away. They both climbed to their feet, but Fai didn’t keep walking. He watched Kurogane and leaned against a tree.

“Haven’t the others tried to kill you?” He said.

“Yes!” Kurogane said. “And I never realized how much I respected them for it until now.” He stalked past Fai. Behind him, Fai laughed loudly.

“ _Respected_ them? You’re, you’re insane!”

“They didn’t just lie down and die,” Kurogane said back. He didn’t know why this was making him so angry, but to hear Fai talk, it was like he didn’t even want to be alive. And that made Kurogane upset.

Behind him, Fai was silent. They went a long way in silence, and then Fai said, “but you kill them.”

“What?”

“Sure, they don’t just ‘lay down and die’.” The anger in Fai’s voice was obvious. “But you still kill them. So it doesn’t matter to you that they die, just how entertaining they make it for you, is that right?”

Kurogane turned around, incensed. Entertaining?? This guy was twisted.

Like, okay, he’d admit, he loved a good fight. But he was protecting people. It wasn’t about entertaining.

“Don’t make this about me,” he said. “This isn’t about me.”

“How is it not??”

“I respect them for fighting for themselves, for fighting to live.”

“I’m sorry we can’t all have the _will to live_ .” Fai’s yellow eye was lit up in anger. “You have no _idea_ -” Then, as if a switch was turned off, Fai fell back. His face drained of emotion.

Kurogane blinked, confused.

“Actually,” Fai said. “You know what? That’s fine. I’ll be asleep in a few days. I don’t care.”

Then, he stepped in front of Kurogane and kept walking.

In the village, Fai stuck close to Kurogane. People who came close enough to notice his eye shied away, but Fai didn’t look up often. He curtly instructed Kurogane what ingredients to get and what kind of foods he could make with what and didn’t say much of anything else.

Kurogane didn’t know how to deal with the fight they’d had on the mountain. He was struggling to understand Fai’s point of view and he was struggling to understand his own reaction to it. So in a frantic effort to connect again, when he saw a jewelry shop that Fai had been eyeing, he dragged Fai inside.

“This isn’t groceries,” Fai said, sounding a little choked.

“I wanted to browse,” Kurogane said. 

“You said groceries and then home,” Fai said.

Kurogane stopped and studied Fai. His gaze darted around them nervously and for the first time, he struck Kurogane as tired and starved.

“Do you want to go?”

Fai hesitated and Kurogane watched him glance over the jewelry.

“Well,” he said.

“There’s no one in here,” Kurogane said. “Just us.”

“Well… Well, I haven’t been out in so long… It can’t hurt, right?” 

Fai stood in the back of the shop, quietly examining a rack of earrings, while Kurogane nabbed a blue stone on a leather cord and paid for it hastily in the front. Then, with the gift in his pocket, he came back for Fai and collected him up and then made headway for the mountain.

When they reached the doors of the castle again, Kurogane reached for the necklace in his pocket and held it out to Fai.

Fai took it, confused.

“What is this?” He said.

“It matches your shirts,” Kurogane said gruffly and passed through the front door, too embarrassed to stop and see Fai’s reaction.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every day i daydream abt how sexy kurogane is. he has such a cute personality and such a good heart......... and v broad shoulders........... ty for coming to my tedtalk

On Kurogane’s fourth and fifth day at the castle, he and Fai spent the majority of the time lounging. Fai had relaxed a little bit from his need to be constantly moving, but he still suggested a lot of games. He also insisted on cooking every meal for Kurogane, which was very tender and a little embarrassing. Kurogane hated to admit that he loved it and Fai was a good cook.

And under the collar of his shirt, Kurogane could see the leather cord of the necklace he’d gifted him and the tips of his ears would heat a little.

On Kurogane’s sixth day at the castle, Fai had a hard time getting out of bed. He made breakfast for Kurogane again and then exhaustedly told him he was going to lie in bed today.

Kurogane sat in the corner of his room to keep an eye on him. He told Fai it was to make sure he wasn’t slipping out without Kurogane seeing, but the truth of the matter was, he wanted to be with him. Fai seemed sick. Kurogane didn’t want to leave him like that.

“You ought to take off the patch if you’re going to sleep,” Kurogane said as Fai laid down with his black patch still over his eye. It was a big patch, with a big, wide strap and a large flap that covered half his cheekbone. It took up a lot of his face. Kurogane had caught himself a handful of times daydreaming about taking the patch off and pulling Fai’s hair back so he could finally see his whole face.

Kurogane leaned against the far end of Fai’s tall bed frame, arms crossed, and watched him collapse onto the mattress. Fai hesitated, considering, and then reached up and finally untied the patch and tucked his hair behind his ear.

The patch had only covered an empty socket with almost no scarring, just an eyelid falling halfway closed over nothing at all. His face, finally uncovered by the patch or his hair, was beautiful, if not tired. Kurogane realized he was memorizing his features and his face and almost felt embarrassed except for the fact that Fai was studying him just as closely. His pink lips parted just a little in thought as he looked and Kurogane was suddenly overcome with tenderness over the situation. He looked away finally, not sure how to deal with the heat of Fai’s gaze. He was looking at him so… So… Well, it was like Fai was in awe. Like he was taking the opportunity to memorize Kurogane as much as Kurogane was memorizing him.

Kurogane bit his tongue and looked away and reached out a hand, grumbling about putting away the patch for him, and when Fai put it in his hand delicately, Kurogane stalked to the other side of the room to drop it off on top of the dresser, desperate to hide the way his face burned. He thought if Fai was to look at him for one more second, he would see through him and see every little thought Kurogane had in his head, every ache in his heart, every time he’d looked at Fai and thought his heart might stop from being overwhelmed with emotions he barely recognized.

Fai slept most of the day, but once he woke up in the evening, he asked Kurogane to do something.

He rolled over in bed and Kurogane looked up from the novel he’d been reading, something he found in the castle’s library. (Kurogane was very fond of action novels and comics. When he was not actively involved in a fight, he liked to at least be thinking or reading about fighting. Fighting people was his life’s passion, after all.)

Fai stretched a little in bed.

“Morning,” Kurogane said.

“Are you going to make a sleeping beauty joke?” Fai said sleepily.

Kurogane laughed a little in response.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh,  _ very _ tired,” Fai said.

He had refused to explain more to Kurogane about how he felt but Kurogane could put 2 and 2 together, so he didn’t ask.

“There’s only one more day until the spell is complete,” Fai continued and he sounded hopeful. “Would you do me a favor, Kuro-chan?”

“What,” Kurogane said.

“Please add this list of ingredients to the spell now,” Fai said. He sat up and rooted around in his little bedside table drawer and brought out a notepad and started writing. “Everything will be listed at my desk. Just put them in and I’ll do the rest later, okay?”

Kurogane stood up and approached Fai to take the list, but before he could get too close, Fai leaned over and carefully placed the little paper on the edge of the bed and then he leaned back fast and smiled placatingly.

Kurogane tried not to let his annoyance show on his face. He knew, logically he knew, that it was probably just hard for Fai to be too close. Because of the whole blood thing. He was already bedridden for fuck’s sake and the probability of it being because the hunger was making him tired was high. But it still rubbed him the wrong way. He remembered when Fai had leapt back after Kurogane had tried to kiss him and the humiliation of that was still fresh in his heart. This entire time he’d been here, Fai had kept a careful distance. He snatched the little paper off the edge of the bed and stalked out of the room. Behind him, Fai waggled his fingers cutely and said something like ‘toodeloo’, but Kurogane didn’t stick around long enough to hear.

He  _ knew _ why Fai was acting this way. So he shouldn’t be so offended. He had no  _ room _ to be offended! Even if Fai had been human and just hated Kurogane’s guts, he’d still have no room to act like he was owed anything. And he knew that!

But it still hurt.

He wandered a little confusedly through the castle until he stumbled upon Fai’s office. 

The little croquet hoops were still set up on the floor. Kurogane resisted the urge to kick one bitterly.

The spell was a big mixing bowl on the desk and inside it was all dark smoke when Kurogane leaned in to look. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t that. 

Fai’s list of ingredients were easily labeled on the wall in little glass bottles, although all of them were covered in dust. He wiped them off and carefully added each requested bottle into the dark smoke bowl. While he was doing this, the bitterness rose again in his heart, but this time for different reasons.

It wasn’t  _ healthy _ to want to just go to sleep like this. This was kind of fucked up. Kurogane kind of felt like he was being involved in a… In a, what, assisted suicide?! The words curled sickly in his stomach as he dumped another bottle in and once he set that bottle down, he had to take a second. That  _ was _ it, wasn’t it. This would qualify as… That. Kurogane leaned over the table, processing this, holding onto the wall for support. Shit. That was so… Fucked up!! He couldn’t do that!! 

Everything about this case was throwing Kurogane for loops. This wasn’t how vampire hunting was supposed to GO! This wasn’t what it was like!! He didn’t feel like he was hunting vampires, he didn’t feel like he was protecting people; he felt like he was hurting someone he should be helping. Vampire or not, Kurogane’s every instinct told him that Fai  _ was  _ one of the innocents he should be helping. Why didn’t he just follow his gut? Why was he not stopping this??

Kurogane set down the last bottle, his mind racing, guilt squeezing him from every side. He couldn’t… He couldn’t do this. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right!

But then what was he going to do? Innocent or not, it didn’t make Fai  _ not _ a vampire. There were no vampires in society. There was no precedent for a vampire left alive. Kurogane couldn’t let him attack people to survive, even if Fai  _ could  _ bring himself to do that, which Kurogane knew he never could. Could they get around it? Maybe they could work something out, take donations, do something.

If Fai had to drink  _ Kurogane’s _ blood, well… Well, he’d let him, wouldn’t he!! Kurogane’s main priority was not killing vampires, it was protecting people weaker than him, and if Fai needed to be protected, Kurogane would do it. Even if it meant letting him drink his blood.

It wouldn’t matter so much anyway, right? Fai wouldn’t have to take so much. Kurogane sat down in Fai’s desk chair, deep in thought. This could be sustainable. They’d just have to figure something out. After all, once they managed to get donations, from hospitals or something maybe, then Fai wouldn’t have to drink from Kurogane anymore, because no doubt he wouldn’t  _ want _ to. It’s just that Kurogane would be willing.

This train of thought led Kurogane to the idea of Fai’s lips on Kurogane’s neck and he thought he would combust on the spot the second the image came to his head.

Fai didn’t seem to  _ like _ Kurogane all that much, despite his flirty personality. Fai wouldn’t  _ want _ to do this. It wouldn’t be a romantic thing. It would just be a ‘staying alive’ thing. And it would be rude of Kurogane to think about it romantically when Fai didn’t want him to. So he tried to scrub all the romance from his thoughts. No more thinking about true loves! Absolutely no more! He was  _ done _ now, for real!!

With new resolve, Kurogane jumped up from the desk chair and made his way quickly back to Fai’s bedroom.

Kurogane burst into the room, somewhat electrified with the idea of Fai not having to die.

Fai looked up from where he’d been burying his face into his pillow and raised his eyebrows.

“Kuro-chan?” He said. “Took you long enough. You’re not very good at spells, I guess. What were you doing up there?”

“I don’t think you should go to sleep,” Kurogane said.

There was a long pause. Fai blinked.

“Oh?” Fai said. He cocked his head a little. “You’ll kill me then?”

Kurogane frowned deeply and stepped further into the room. He shut the door behind him. He was coming down now from the thrill of the idea and it was settling into him now. He was confident in this. He would be unmovable. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. No one in this castle was dying anytime soon.

“No,” he said and he folded his arms gruffly. “I think you should stay awake.”

Fai smiled at Kurogane from over his bedsheets and folded his arms back in a lighthearted mockery of Kurogane’s seriousness.

“And why’s that?” He said.

Kurogane went a little red.

“I just think you should, alright?”

“No, that’s not alright. Tell me.”

Kurogane steeled himself, scowling.

“Fine. You don’t deserve to die, mage. I’m not an executioner for people who don’t deserve it. I protect innocent people. I don’t harm them.”

“I’m not innocent.”

“Fuck whatever you think you did that made you ‘not innocent’. I don’t care about anything that happened to you before I walked in here because the man I know now doesn’t deserve to sleep forever.”

Fai looked at Kurogane, his expression unreadable, and then looked away. He settled deeper under his sheets. The silence grew. Kurogane took a step forward, attune to Fai’s everyone movement. What was he thinking?

“So what do you plan to do with me?” Fai finally said. “If I don’t die.”

“We’ll figure out a way for you to eat. We’ll get blood donations. We’ll raid a hospital. You don’t have to just give up.”

“That won’t work, Kuro-sama.”

“We haven’t even tried it yet,” Kurogane said frustratedly.

“It won’t.”

“Then you can drink from  _ me _ ,” he said insistently. “I don’t care.”

“I do!” Fai cried and he looked over angrily and scooted away from Kurogane.

“Just until we can figure something out.”

“No!!”

Kurogane stopped talking. Fai was starting to get visibly upset.

“I told you the only two options,” Fai said in a low voice. “And those  _ are _ the options.”

“You’re wrong. I won’t let you finish that spell.”

For a second, an anger passed over Fai’s face that almost frightened Kurogane, but it was only a second and then it was gone.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said gravely.

For a while, they stared each other down. Kurogane  _ wished _ he could offer (threaten?) therapy, but he didn’t know any vampire therapists.

Finally, Fai sighed and looked away.

“Why are you doing this to me,” he said and he sounded so broken down and bitter that Kurogane almost took a step back. For a second, he thought of what Fai had said that first morning. Kurogane was a knight in shining armor. Knights in shining armor were supposed to protect people. They were supposed to help them, make them feel safe. Kurogane was supposed to  _ save _ Fai. Why did Fai’s reaction make him feel like he was failing.

“You deserve to be okay,” Kurogane said and it came out weaker than he wanted it to.

There were a lot of emotions in his heart right now and they were all a little overwhelming and it kind of made Kurogane want to punch a hole in a wall.

There was another long silence in which Fai said nothing, so Kurogane spoke again.

“I know you’re hungry and you’re sick. I’ll try to set something up for you, but until then, I really think you should drink  _ my  _ blood.”

Fai stiffened visibly.

“Okay?” Kurogane prodded.

There was a pause and then Fai said, in words too quiet to not have been forced, “fine. But I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  
  


***

In the morning, Fai was back to his cheerful self, even though he didn’t have much more energy from yesterday. He got up anyway and woke Kurogane up early, all smiles, and insisted on making him breakfast as usual.

Over the dinner table in the kitchen, Kurogane watched Fai suspiciously. (Turns out there was a giant dining room close by, but it was too big and too dusty, so they had stuck to taking meals in the kitchen.)

“You’re chipper,” Kurogane said.

“I’m always chipper,” Fai said as he began to clean the kitchen after himself. Kurogane was reminded of the first few days he’d been awake, when he’d had that cane, and felt a similar pity wash over him.

“Would you cut that out,” he said gruffly. “I’ll clean it. You’re tired, would you just rest?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Fai said as he wiped down the counters.

“It is, so cut it out. I’ll do it.”

“I’m already doing it!!”

“I’m going to come over there and take that rag away from you.”

“It’s practically finished.”

“Mage-”   
Fai whirled around, his eye flashing.

“Let me!” He said overly cheerfully, something in his voice too-strained. “Do something nice for you, Kuro-chan!!”

Kurogane was silenced.

When Fai finally sat back down, after a moment, Kurogane tried to bring up last night again.

“You’ll feel better when you have something to eat,” he said. Fai stiffened, but his expression didn’t budge. He watched the center of the table with deceptive serenity, his hands crossed over the space where his plate would have been. His square little nails had begun to grow back out, just a little, into the points they were supposed to be. He didn’t answer, so Kurogane went on. “Can we please keep talking about this.”

“I don’t know what more you want me to say,” Fai said stiffly.

Kurogane watched Fai and then pushed his empty plate away so he could lean closer to him over the table, almost conspiratorily.

“Would it really be so awful to just… Stay awake?” Kurogane said. “You don’t have to deal with the hunger; I told you, we’ll figure it out. And you can bite me, I don’t care. Hell, I’ll even bleed into a cup if that’s what you want. I won’t let you hurt me. You don’t have to worry.”

“I don’t want you to do that.”

“Your only other choice is to die and that is  _ not _ a choice,” Kurogane said. He was starting to get angry. “So, yeah, it’s happening. Get used to it.”

Kurogane was reminded at this time that the spell that Fai had created was still sitting in his office, practically ready to use. He stood up.

“We ought to throw out the spell you made,” he said. “I should have done it last night. It’s dangerous, I don’t want you using it.”

Fai looked up as if he’d been slapped. “That’s not your  _ choice _ ,” he said.

“I think all bets are off on that one when you’re planning on hurting yourself,” Kurogane said. “You can stay or you can come with me.” And he left in the direction of Fai’s office.

Fai followed and he watched from the doorway as Kurogane puzzled over the pot of smoke. Finally, he opted for dumping it out a window, which sort of worked as the wind carried the smoke away.

He felt a little worried as he did it. It felt wrong to throw out something that wasn’t his while not even in his own house, but he knew he was right about needing to protect Fai. 

When he turned back around, Fai was leaning in the doorframe and twisting the little blue stone Kurogane had given him in his fingers. Kurogane couldn’t read his face. Fai said nothing.

Finally, frustratedly, he said, “I’m going to put blood in a cup and then what you do with it at that point is up to you.”

He started past Fai to head back to the kitchen, but Fai blocked him before he could.

“Please,” Fai said. “Don’t.” Angry, Kurogane opened his mouth to respond, but Fai cut him off and kept going. “Look, Kuro-sama, I’m just, let me get  _ used _ to it still, okay??” He looked up at him pleadingly and the look on his face broke Kurogane’s heart. He looked tired and sad, with dark rings under his eyes and an unhealthy grey pallor to his skin. He looked like he might keel over from hunger any minute. He raised his hands and averted his gaze, placating. “Give me time to… To come around to the idea.” Then, his fingers, with the saddest little jerks, reached forward to rest on Kurogane’s shoulders. Fai’s face pinched with tears and he shakily smoothed his hands over Kurogane’s shirt, looking anywhere but his face. “Please.”

For his part, Kurogane was sort of floored. This guy hadn’t wanted to be anywhere  _ near _ him for a full week and now, now he was touching him like this was normal, like Fai’s hands on Kurogane’s shoulders was par for the course, this pleading little touch. His face grew hot.

He reached up and took Fai’s wrists gently, and then his hands, and all he could do was nod.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Okay.”

As soon as he said this, Fai slowly took his hands away, nodding too, his eyes still on the floor, and then he turned around and walked quickly back down the hallway. Frozen in place, Kurogane let him go.

  
  


***

  
  


Fai found Kurogane again in one of the lounges, where he had been sitting and waiting for him, lost in quiet thought. Fai came up from behind, arrestingly silent, and rested the tips of his fingers on Kurogane’s shoulder. Kurogane turned, feeling expectant and unsure and like he was positively swimming in emotion.

Fai smiled down at him and walked around the chair to face him.

“I’ve decided,” he said. “I’ll… Let you do it.” Fai’s yellow eye searched Kurogane’s face. “But can we do it in an hour or so?”

“Why an hour?” Kurogane asked. Fai’s hand was still on his shoulder and Kurogane was extremely aware of this.

“Well, I’m still… Coming to terms,” Fai said. “Is that okay?”

Kurogane considered this suspiciously, but before he could say anything, Fai went on. 

“And I also came to tell you,” he said. “That we’ve also run out of things to make for dinner, so if you want something by dinnertime, you ought to go to town now.”

“We ran out already?”

“It’s the last day, isn’t it? We only planned so far.”

Fai pulled back a little and sat on the edge of a nearby ottoman.

“Can you make it to town??” Kurogane said.

Fai made a face, his eye on the velvet of the chair underneath him.

“I-” He started and then corrected and said, “no. I can’t.” He looked up at Kurogane again under his eyelashes. “You’ll… Let me stay behind this time, won’t you?”

“I’d rather you rest,” Kurogane agreed, standing, but he was starting to get a fishy feeling about all this. Something about the way Fai wouldn’t meet his eyes half the time. “Are you, are you sure?”

But before he could go on, Fai had climbed to his feet as well and stepped forward and then both of his hands were on Kurogane’s shoulders and he was pressing his lips to Kurogane’s cheek.

Every wire in Kurogane’s brain shorted out in a second. Fai’s lips were soft on his cheek and his hands were  _ warm _ and he smelled so good, like the last time they’d been this close, and Kurogane literally froze.

Before he knew it, he was being shuffled out the door with a grocery list and a backpack and Fai promising they’d talk more when he was home.

Kurogane had left feeling like he was walking on a cloud.

  
  


***

  
  


He continued to feel this way at the grocery store, where the words ‘true love’ were a broken record inside his head, when Fai’s image appeared in front of him. Kurogane jerked back in shock.

He was grey and see-through and flickering and he smiled in Kurogane’s direction, but he didn’t seem to actually see him, like some sort of magical hologram.

“Kuro-sama,” he said cheerfully. “Please don’t respond because I can’t hear you. But I need to talk to you quickly, while you’re out. Please find a private place and I’ll be back in a minute!” And then, the image of him flickered out from in front of Kurogane.

Kurogane stared at the spot where the apparition had been, in awe of magic as usual, but something was sinking inside him. There was a pit in his stomach.

He found a private place inside an alley and waited until Fai’s apparition appeared in front of him again.

That’s when he realized why the pit had formed in his stomach. Fai was wearing his burial suit.

“Oh, fuck,” Kurogane said. “Oh, oh, fuck.”

“Kurogane,” Fai said and he smiled. “Please don’t panic. But I’ve decided to put myself to sleep while you’re out. I thought you’d throw out the spell, so I saved some while you were sleeping last night.” Fai smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Kurogane stared, frozen in place, rage and fear rising in his chest.

“I wish I could make you understand, but honestly, Kuro-sama, I’m actually glad you don’t. I’m happy for you. But the truth is that it’s been too long for me now and the hunger…” Fai’s expression flickered a little painfully. “Is too much for me to bare any longer. I can’t stand it and I  _ will not _ take anything from you. I also don’t want to put you in a position where you’re forced to end my life. So I’m going back to sleep.”

Kurogane felt like the floor was giving out beneath him. Finally in control of his limbs again, he leapt for the street and ran.

Fai’s apparition floated beside him. Kurogane ran as fast as he could, barrelling through the streets.

“But I also want to warn you not to wake me again. If you do, I,” Fai pressed his lips together, obviously trying very hard to keep up appearances, and for once, finding it difficult. “I’m not sure what I’ll do to you. I will probably attack you, Kuro-sama. I don’t want that. So I’m asking you to please let me sleep.”

Kurogane dashed through the streets, narrowly avoiding people, his arms pumping.

“You idiot,” he was saying. “You dumbass!”

“I know you’re probably worried right now,” Fai was saying, and he laughed a little. Kurogane spared his apparition a glance as he bobbed alongside him, linked to his side. “I don’t want you to be. Like I told you before, going to sleep, it doesn’t scare me. Living, I think, was always harder for me than everyone else. Everything feels so… Heavy. All the time. There’s a weight on my heart. It’s hard to explain. But going to sleep, it’s exactly what I want, Kuro-sama. It’s not scary. It’s peaceful. I look forward to the blackness.”

Fai was quiet for a second.

“I never told you this, but maybe it will help you understand. I was cursed to be a vampire. I wasn’t born this way. I’m supposed to be like you. And almost as soon as I was cursed, I put myself to sleep. I don’t like to be this way, so I’m glad to be asleep for that, too. I don’t want to live like this. It’s a very merciful thing I’m doing for myself, I think, and that’s how I want you to think about it, too.”

Kurogane made it to the bottom of the hill and looked up at the castle, out of breath, his sides aching. He was a good runner, and he was strong, but he’d never run so far and so fast before. But he wasn’t done yet.

If Fai went to sleep, Kurogane knew he could wake him just as easily as he had the first time. He didn’t need to rush. Fai wouldn’t be dead, not really. But Kurogane didn’t want this for him anyway. He wanted to stop him. He wanted to shake him, force him to see this wasn’t okay. He’d do anything for Fai and Fai really didn’t think he’d  _ happily _ open a fucking vein? That they could find a way around this together?

Kurogane began to run up the hill.

Fai’s apparition went on.

“I don’t have much more to say, except that,” Fai hesitated. He was starting to look tired. His shoulders slumped further. “I was afraid when I was first woken up and this time being so close to you has been… Difficult for me. But I’m glad I was woken because I was so glad to have met you. I loved being with you, Kuro-sama. You really are my true love.” He smiled weakly. Kurogane stumbled in the dirt and kept going. “So thank you for giving me this time with you.”

Fai was quiet for a few minutes while Kurogane struggled up the hill and through the thorn bushes.

“Please,” Fai finally said. “Don’t wake me.” 

Then, the apparition vanished.

“Fuck!!” Kurogane screamed in frustration and finally, finally he reached the gate of the castle. It had been closed and locked. He scaled it. The castle doors had been closed and locked. Kurogane busted in a nearby window and crawled in.

At this point, between the exhaustion from running so many miles and the slices from the thorns and the glass, Kurogane was ready to drop. But he couldn’t stop, not yet.

“Fai!!” He screamed into the empty hallway to no response. He raced on towards the coffin room.

When Kurogane finally burst into the coffin room, the room was as if he had never been there. The water was still. Kurogane hit the edge of the pool and looked down and underneath the water was Fai, looking like he’d never been woken. Kurogane was hit with deja vu.

He grabbed the crank.

The old machinery creaked and the water rippled and soon, Fai’s coffin was above water again.

Kurogane swiped blood off his face where a piece of glass from the broken window had caught him and then, he flung open the coffin lid and wiped the drops of blood he had caught onto Fai’s lips.

The waking was as fast as it had been last time, possibly even faster. Fai convulsed as his spell broke yet again and he sat up violently fast, heaving. Then, he turned and fixed his eye on Kurogane. He looked vicious. He looked hungry. He didn’t look like himself.

“Fai-” Kurogane started, but before he could finish, Fai had leapt out of the coffin and tackled him to the ground.

They hit the floor together with a thud and Fai had both hands tightly on Kurogane’s arms. Then, with a hiss from the back of his throat, he sunk his teeth into Kurogane’s throat-hard.

Kurogane choked for a second at the pain and the pressure as Fai’s teeth broke skin. Kurogane reached up to grab Fai reflexively and Fai dug his claws into Kurogane’s arms and slammed him again into the ground. Kurogane grunted in pain. He was seeing stars.

He knew this would happen, after all. Fai had told him this would happen. Fai wasn’t in his right mind, he wasn’t totally aware, the hunger had developed into some sort of black-out, knee-jerk sort of response, and they had both been expecting this. It still hurt like fuck, though. Kurogane rested his fingers gingerly on Fai’s forearms, above where he gripped him so hard, it bled, and laid there, straddled underneath him. He’d just give him enough to tide him over for now, just enough to keep him awake. Kurogane would stop him before he started to get sick. He’d stop him.

Actually, he should probably stop him right about now.

But before he could, everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vampires are hot, ty for reading


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realized im posting chapters abt every 2 weeks???? i thought it was so much less than that......... i want to post more frequently!!! fingers crossed!! except clearly i need 2 weeks to just sit and meditate on a chapter a;lksdfj  
> BUT!! i have ILLUSTRATIONS for this chapter!! so stay tuned ;D  
> anyway heads up this one is sad :(

When Kurogane woke, he was on the floor of the coffin room. He stared at the ceiling tiredly and wondered for a few seconds what had happened. And then, when he tried to swallow, the pain was so sharp and immediate that it all came back.

Fai had jumped him.

Kurogane tried to sit up. Fai? Where was he?! Was he okay?

Suddenly, Fai appeared in the corner of Kurogane’s vision. He put a hand solidly on Kurogane’s chest and pushed him back to the floor.

“Lay,” he said darkly. “Down.”

Kurogane laid down.

He noticed then that there was a pillow under his head and a blanket laid over his chest. Above him was an IV drip. Where the hell had he gotten that??

He also noticed that Fai was practically glowing. He looked like an angel. It looked like if Kurogane was to reach out his hand to him, Fai would only have ever been a very beautiful painting, and not a person at all. Kurogane had always thought Fai was beautiful, but now he was… Unreal.

Fai knelt back down onto the floor and folded his arms over his knees and stared at Kurogane.

“You bastard,” Kurogane tried to get out, but his throat was EXTREMELY sore. His words came out in a rasping whisper. “You sprung that on me while I was at least a mile away so I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Fai was looking at him tiredly. His eye was red and swollen, like he’d been crying, and there were shadows on his face. His glare was venomous. It didn’t take away from the surreal beauty and grace that had been bestowed on him so suddenly.

“And clearly, you did anyway,” he said.

“You think I was going to let you do that, no fucking way,” Kurogane said. “No way you’re just giving up on me.” He choked on spit he couldn’t swallow and had to take a second. Fai pushed a glass of water towards him and Kurogane sat up on one elbow and did his best to let some of the water run down his throat.

“I’m not giving up on you, you idiot,” Fai said poisonously. Kurogane was a little shocked. This was the most harshly he had ever talked to him before. “I’m _saving_ you. From this exact _shit_.” 

“I don’t remember you asking me what I wanted,” Kurogane said.

Fai scoffed, but his eye was shining wetly.

“I thought I’d killed you,” he said and his voice caught. “By the time I realized what was happening, I thought you were dead. Can you even imagine-” Fai choked and dug his claws into his own arms and started again. “Can you even imagine how I felt, sitting over your limp fucking body?!”

“We wouldn’t even be here if you’d just taken my blood like I told you in the first place,” Kurogane growled.

“No!” Fai cried and jumped to his feet. He grabbed his own hair and made a gasping, broken little sound. “Stop!” And then, he stalked away until Kurogane couldn’t see him anymore. Kurogane listened to his footsteps until he was too far to hear anymore and then he fell back down onto his pillow in the middle of the floor and sighed.

***

  
  


In the morning, Kurogane found Fai in the library again. He stood by the door and watched him for just a minute as Fai strolled among the books. He had started using that stupid eyepatch again to Kurogane’s frustration, covering up damn near half his fuckin’ face. And right when Kurogane had started to convince him to go without it.

A few of the games they’d played were stacked on the table in the corner and Fai picked up the stack and put it away inside a cupboard and shut the door. Then, he continued to peruse the books on the wall. Kurogane wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He pulled down a few books and examined them quickly before putting them back. Maybe he was looking for a new spell that Kurogane would have to stop him from performing.

He leaned against the doorframe. Fai looked _better_ now. He didn’t look so tired or so sick. He didn’t seem frail or weak or exhausted. Kurogane had been thinking about how he sort of looked like he’d transcended this plane and it captivated him. Fai was… Entrancing. 

Kurogane remembered how hard he’d squeezed his arms when he’d jumped him, how easy it had been for Fai to hold him down. Fai had strength that wasn’t immediately obvious looking at him. It was hot, but Kurogane was not thinking about how it was hot. He would never think that, after all, that Fai was hot, and that how strong he was was also hot, and that his mouth on Kurogane’s neck was sort of electrifying. Kurogane would not think those things, he wasn’t thinking about it.

Lost in these thoughts about how he totally wasn’t thinking about Fai’s hotness, Fai noticed him.

He looked up and their eyes met and Fai narrowed his gaze angrily. Then, he turned around and started to walk away. There was a door on the other side of the room he was booking for.

“Wait!” Kurogane said and he stepped further into the room. “Mage, hold on.”

Fai turned around again, his mouth pressed into an angry line. The leather strap of the gift Kurogane had brought him back from the village at the bottom of the hill was _not_ around his neck.

“What?” Fai said. He forced his mouth into a bitter sort of smile that didn’t convince Kurogane for a second. “Do you need something?” Something about him suddenly seemed a little… Maybe intimidating? Kurogane had had a hard time even believing he was a vampire before, but now, with the way his skin seemed to glow and his beauty was otherworldly, the way he even seemed to blink less, it was believable. He clearly wasn’t human once he’d had something to drink. 

That also wasn’t hot. Kurogane wasn’t thinking about how that was hot, and how the little bit of intimidation he felt was also not hot. None of these things were hot. In fact, Kurogane could even make a note of that in his head: strong, intimidating vampires with otherworldly beauty and strength and an inhuman side that became more obvious after having drank blood were NOT hot. There. Noted.

Kurogane stepped further into the room, towards Fai, but as soon as he got a few feet away, Fai took a step back. Kurogane stopped. He glanced over to the study, with the dusty chairs and ottoman.

“Would you sit down with me for a second?”

“...”

“Please.”

“Fine.”

Fai sat in the chair delicately, folding one leg over the other in a gesture that seemed too deliberate and slow to not be forced. He sat in the chair furthest from Kurogane, which was annoying.

The changes in him were small and difficult for Kurogane to describe, but part of him became afraid, for just a second, that Fai would one day become bored of him. This surreally beautiful creature didn’t need someone like Kurogane. Kurogane suddenly had a hard time imagining Fai wanting to spend time with him. Normal guys didn’t date angels out of paintings. His mouth went dry for a minute.

“I want to talk,” Kurogane finally choked out.

“Then talk,” Fai said in that same deliberate way.

Kurogane frowned, incensed. He fought to put away the feeling that Fai was above him now somehow.

“Are you going to be _difficult_ this whole time,” he finally said, which wasn’t what he’d come here to say, but Fai’s coldness was starting to slice him up inside, like a cheese grater on his heart.

“Until you get the hint and leave? Yes.”

Kurogane ground his teeth and looked back up at Fai’s face. He wanted to insist again that he wasn’t going to let Fai die and if this was the price, then so be it, but they’d had that conversation. No matter what Kurogane thought, Fai wouldn’t just agree because he said it a hundred times-even though Kurogane sometimes thought that might work.

“That’s not what I came here to say,” he backed down frustratedly.

Fai was silent again. Kurogane forced himself to relax a little, tried to show Fai how all this was coming from a place of _worry_ , of _lo-_ Well!!!! Well, a place of LOVE is probably a little, that’s a little fast, right? To say he lo- he- LISTEN! 

Isn’t it enough to say he’s worried about Fai!! That’s enough, right?

Kurogane had not had a lot of romantic relationships in his life. He’d had feelings for one other boy in his entire life, a kid he’d known during school, and the feelings had passed pretty quickly and he’d never had them again. Until now. He’d almost started to convince himself that those feelings weren’t even real and everyone around him had been lying about them his whole life. So trying to figure out what to do with them now that he _did_ have them was uncharted territory.

“Fai,” Kurogane continued. “I want to talk about what you said earlier, about how you said you’d been cursed.”

Fai stiffened visibly.

“I didn’t even know that was possible,” Kurogane kept going. “I want to know what happened.”

“Why.”

“Because I-” Kurogane growled. “I _care_ about you, idiot. So I want to know what happened to you. I-I’m your. True love. After all.”

Fai scoffed loudly.

“Truve love! _Now_ you’ll say it, will you?”

“I-”

“You didn’t even want to _talk_ about it earlier, but now when you can use it to your advantage-”

“Use it to my _advantage_?!”

“So _now_ it’s fine for you to rub it in my face.”

“What?!” Kurogane was shocked at the amount of anger in Fai.

“You don’t know anything about what being a true love to me means!” Fai went on. He was leaning over his chair now, his face screwed up in anger.

“Okay, this is the SECOND time you’re insinuating that I’m not enough for you-”

“You don’t owe me anything, Kurogane! True love is bullshit; you’re right! So leave!”

Kurogane sat back in his chair like he was hit. So Fai was full-naming him now, huh? That’s how this was gonna go?

“You’re the stupidest person I know, you know that?” Kurogane finally spat.

Fai scoffed and sat back. Kurogane went on.

“I’m sorry this isn’t the _soulmate experience_ you wanted! I’m not fucking prince charming! We can’t all be something out of a damn Renaissance painting!”

Fai was quiet, glaring, and then his bottom lip began to shake and he looked away fast. Kurogane hated it when Fai cried. It sort of made Kurogane want to cry too, and he probably would when the adrenaline of anger wore off of him. He wished he could reach back and take his words back, if they would make Fai cry.

Fai shook his head.

“This is exactly what I was trying to avoid,” he said and swiped at his cheeks with clawed hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Kurogane said fast. “Please, don’t, don’t cry. I’m sorry I said that.”

“I can’t tell you what happened to me,” he said.

“Why.” 

“Because then…” Fai looked away.

“Then _what_?” Fuck, talking to this guy was like pulling teeth sometimes. Fai fought him every step of the damn way. Kurogane’s eyes were starting to sting with tears too.

“I just couldn’t stand it if you hated me,” he finally said. “I don’t want to live with that.”

“I never would,” Kurogane said before he could even stop to think about the words coming out of his mouth. “I’d never hate you.”

“You would, though,” Fai said quietly, his gaze on the carpet. 

Kurogane frowned and shook his head frustratedly. He didn’t know what to do. _Fight_ Fai about it??

He stood up and sat a few chairs closer to Fai, cautious, like Fai might bolt. Fai looked up in surprise and watched him move, his face a little red from the tears. 

“I told you,” he said in a low voice once he’d settled in closer. “That I wouldn’t. And I fuckin’ mean that.”

Fai shrunk away from his eyes and Kurogane huffed frustratedly.

“Fine. Look. You want to keep this a secret? Bottle it up? Fine. Be that way. But we still need to come up with a plan for you.”

“A plan?”

“Yeah, a plan. You’re coming down with me and we’re gonna find one of those blood donation centers and we’re going to get supplies for you.”

Fai looked surprised for a second and then he pressed his lips together.

“Oh,” he said. Then, “Please, don’t do that. It won’t work. Please.”

“Then I don’t know what you want from me!” Kurogane said. “What do you mean it won’t work?? They’ll give me what I ask for-I’m a vampire hunter, they’re not going to say _no_.”

“I’m _asking_ you. Not to.”

“Why?”

Fai was silent.

Kurogane really wanted to pull his own hair out.

“Well, that’s the plan. I’m going to keep you alive and that’s that.”

Fai’s face was dark and for a second, he glared. Then, he stood, one fluid motion. His movements were more graceful now, and his attention was more scalding. His presence was more demanding. He seemed a little more like the vampires Kurogane usually knew in that aspect-but Fai was nothing like them at all. 

For a second, Kurogane thought Fai would say more, but then he closed his mouth and looked away and then, he reached the door faster than Kurogane had been able to track him with his eyes and was gone.

***

By the evening, Kurogane had come back to the castle with a bag full of donations from the blood donation center, all wrapped up in little plastic packages. He’d had to be creative about covering up the still-tender bruises on his neck that Fai had left yesterday night, but at least the teeth marks had closed up now, by some sort of vampire magic. Either way, no one had seen and no one had asked any questions.

He found Fai sitting in his office and set the bag on top of his desk.

Fai had been flipping through more books, which he closed quickly as soon as Kurogane came in. Suspicious behavior. Kurogane did not overlook it.

“What is this,” Fai said disdainfully, even though Kurogane thought he probably knew.

“It’s for you.”

“I don’t want it.”

Rage boiled up in Kurogane in one hot second and he ground his teeth loudly and said, “fine then!” And he turned around and left the room.

He hated the way things were becoming between them. There was a part of him with no pride or shame that wanted to run back into the room and grab Fai up and make him see how he felt about him. But he didn’t do that. He couldn’t do that.

He couldn’t help but think back to the day before, when Fai had kissed him on the cheek, his hands on his shoulders. He knew now that Fai had been distracting him and that he’d been dumb enough to fall for it. But was that all it was? It had been more to Kurogane. It had been just a little bit earth shattering for Kurogane. 

It meant Fai _did_ know how he felt. And he knew how to use it to needle Kurogane, but that was all. That was all.

That night, Kurogane checked on Fai again in his office. He stood stiffly in the doorway while Fai read out of one of those big books. It seemed like it had grown dark around Fai and he had been so concentrated on his reading that he hadn’t noticed, so now the room was nearly pitch black, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

Even sitting there in the dark, he seemed like a creature from another plane of existence. Kurogane had a hard time taking his eyes off of him. It was like something about him had changed just a little since he’d actually drank blood, became more surreal. Kurogane couldn’t decide if it was more intoxicating or unsettling to see.

“Oi,” he said and Fai looked over his shoulder slowly.

In the dark, his slitted gold eye seemed almost to glow.

“It’s dark in here,” Kurogane finally said. “What are you doing reading in the dark, idiot?”

“Oh,” Fai said and that gold eye blinked in surprise. “I… Hadn’t noticed.”

Kurogane reached into the room and flicked the light switch. Fai blinked again, his sight adjusting, as Kurogane stepped further into the room.

The bag he’d brought had been moved to the floor and opened. Kurogane glanced at it, but tried not to let his gaze linger in order to spare Fai’s feelings.

“It’s been quiet around here lately,” he said and frowned. “Thought you’d have, I dunno, forced me to play one of your stupid games again.”

In fact, Fai had even been letting him cook his own meals, which he hadn’t let Kurogane do even once in the past week. It was lonely to eat alone and Kurogane hated it.

Fai looked him up and down.

“I’ve been busy,” he said and then he turned back to his book, turning his back on Kurogane. “You hated them anyway, the games.”

Kurogane folded his arms over his chest and frowned deeper.

“Well,” he stammered out. “You didn’t care how I felt about them the first time. I’m just surprised is all.”

“Ha,” Fai said joylessly. Kurogane stared at the back of his head. “Do you actually _believe_ the little game you’re putting on right now or are you aware of what you’re trying to do?”

“Excuse me??” Kurogane said.

Fai turned slowly. His face was so cold lately, but also so intimidatingly beautiful.

“If you _want_ me to play games with you,” he said. “Then _ask_ , Kurogane.”

Kurogane ground his teeth and swallowed his pride.

“Alright, fine,” he spat. “I think you need to get out of this room. And I. Want to. See you. Come play fuckin’ mini golf or some shit.”

Fai narrowed his eye.

“No,” he said and then he turned around.

… What?!

Kurogane was silent for a second, nursing the shock and the pain in his heart.

Why was Fai acting this way?! Why was he doing this to him!! 

And he _knew_ how Kurogane felt!

“You made me ask you just so you could say _no_?!” He growled slowly. Tears were starting to prick at his eyes, but he wasn’t going to do this in front of this guy, he wasn’t going to stand here and cry at the rejection right in front of him.

Kurogane was adamant that expressing your emotions was healthy and didn’t like to think of himself as the kind of guy who forced himself to be ‘too tough to cry’. He _did_ have too much pride to do it in front of the man who’d just brutally let him down, though, so he bit his tongue and reined in his pain.

“Oh, was that mean of me?” Fai said in a deadpan. “Maybe you’ll leave now.”

Kurogane squeezed his hands into fists and took a few steps closer, his heart stinging. 

“Listen,” he said loudly. “I don’t know what your problem is-”

Before he could go on, Fai full-body shuddered and clapped both hands over his mouth. Now that he was closer, Kurogane noticed that Fai had started trembling. He stopped, confused and concerned.

“Uh-” he said and Fai scrambled up from his desk now, gripping the edge of it, white as a sheet. His face finally turned to Kurogane, he could see that he was starting to sweat.

“I think I’m go-” Fai said and then heaved again painfully. “I-I-”

“Oh, shit,” Kurogane said and scrambled for a trash can, but before he could find one, Fai had fallen to his knees in front of his desk and was throwing up on the floor.

This time, Kurogane _did_ hold his hair back, dropping to the floor next to him.

Blood and bile was soaking into the carpet and Fai was shaking.

A second passed and then Fai swiped a trembling hand over his mouth.

“Are you okay?” Kurogane said in bewilderment.

His hands were still in Fai’s hair. He took them away now and adjusted to putting an arm around Fai’s shoulders, holding him up when he looked like he was going to topple over.

“I was hungry,” Fai choked out. “I thought, I thought I’d try-”

He slumped into Kurogane then and Kurogane wrapped both arms around him.

This was the closest they’d ever been, except for when Fai had been drinking his blood.

“You drank the blood I brought you?” Kurogane said and Fai didn’t answer, but he knew it was true. “Then why-why-”

“I told you,” Fai moaned miserably. “I told you. It won’t work.”

“Let’s get you lying down-”

“Please get away from me.”

“Wha-I’m not leaving you here.”

“Why don’t you just realize that I’m not good for you,” Fai said, but his heart wasn’t in the statement and he was still pressed up into Kurogane’s chest, still trembling too hard to move.

“Can I please pick you up and put you in bed.”

“Will you stop me if I try to attack you?”

This was not a question Kurogane had received often in his life and it threw him a little off guard.

“Uh. Sure, yeah. I already told you I’m stronger than you, idiot.”

“I don’t know if I believe that anymore,” Fai replied tiredly into the fabric of Kurogane’s shirt.

This wasn’t a dig and Kurogane knew that-it was Fai’s hopelessness talking-so he didn’t answer it, just adjusted Fai in his arms so he could stand with him. And then, he carried him out of the office and up the stairs and into his bedroom.

He laid Fai down gently on the mattress and started to pull the sheets up around him.

“I thought you would see right when you walked in,” Fai said tiredly, studying Kurogane. “I was worried you’d see, see my face, realize that it wasn’t working, the blood you brought back.”

“In my defense, it’s hard to notice things like that when you _look_ like-” Kurogane stopped himself suddenly, biting his tongue, his hands on the sheets.

Fai cocked his head.

“Look like what?” He said.

Did he not _know_?

And what, like Kurogane was going to tell him he looked like a fuckin’ Greek god?! That he seemed to _glow_?! Hell no.

“Like,” Kurogane scrambled and then, frustratedly, he threw the sheets over Fai’s head. “Like you don’t have a single braincell in your head, stupid.”

Fai pulled the sheets down and looked away.

He was looking a little less pale now, but he was avoiding Kurogane’s eyes.

A second passed.

“What do you need? What can I bring you to make it better?”

“Nothing.”

“Why did you say that blood won’t work?”

“It just won’t. And I told you not to bring it here.”

Kurogane grit his teeth and huffed a breath, praying for patience.

“Fai,” he said. “Please. Talk to me.”

Fai stubbornly stared at the wall.

Kurogane was scrambling a little and he knew it.

“Maybe it was just that one package. Maybe the rest is okay.”

“It’s not. If you bring it back in here, it’ll just make me hungry again. And then I’ll get sick. Again.”

“How are you so certain?!”

Fai didn’t answer.

“Does it have something to do with this curse?”

Fai closed his eye and pulled the sheets over his head. So that was a yes.

“You were fine after drinking from me, though,” Kurogane continued thinking out loud and that was when Fai sat up frantically, desperation in his face.

“Stop!!” He cried. “Stop, please!! Leave!!”

“Mage-”

“No!! No, get out!!”

“Wha-”

Fai clambered shakily out of his bed, clearly still a little nauseated, and started shoving Kurogane towards the door frantically.

“Get out, get out,” he screamed. 

At the door, Kurogane tried to stop him, tried to take his hand, but Fai gave him one last (powerful) shove and then slammed the door behind him

The door in it’s frame cracked a little and the wall shook and Kurogane hit the floor in front of the door and watched the cracks travel up the wall in shock.

***

The next few days passed almost entirely in silence. Fai avoided him like the plague. Kurogane spent his time trying to be easily findable, for when Fai would finally come and find him, but it never happened. It was starting to drive him a little nuts.

On the third night of complete silence, Kurogane laid in bed sleeplessly.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Fai shoving him out of the room the other day. It had been like Kurogane had got too close to a wounded animal. Fai seemed to be _all_ open wounds sometimes. What had Kurogane gotten too close to? And why couldn’t Fai see he was trying to help? 

He flip flopped between anger that Fai was avoiding him and heartbreak at the rejection and sometimes, he got so mad, he wanted to just stalk back out into the night and leave, since Fai clearly hated him so bad. But then he would remember what Fai would do to himself if he left and he’d remember how Fai deserved better and he’d remember how he was Fai’s _true love_. And if anyone could help him, surely his true love could, right? Didn’t that give Kurogane any sort of right to be here, any sort of right to worry for Fai?

He was nowhere near sleep when he decided to get up for a glass of water, or maybe vodka, honestly. It’d be a long night, after all.

He left his room and followed the candle light from the walls down the stairs and towards the kitchen, deep in thought.

Outside of the kitchen door, Kurogane paused. He could hear noises from inside. Rustling? Heavy breathing? He couldn’t tell. It must be Fai in here? He pushed open the door.

Fai _was_ in here, and he was knelt on the ground with Kurogane’s supplies backpack open before him, bent over one of the packets of blood that he held to his mouth with both hands. His hair hung around his face in sweaty strands and he looked feral, but wildly beautiful, like some sort of rare and dangerous wild animal. Kurogane blinked in surprise. The _light_ wasn’t even on in here.

“What are you doing?” Kurogane said, reeling from the shock at seeing Fai this way. He leaned in and clicked on the lights. “Won’t you be sick? Fai?”

Fai’s head snapped up and he pulled the packet out of his mouth, his fangs red and sharp and his mouth ringed in red. His slitted golden eye was wide. He looked shell shocked.

Behind him then, Kurogane saw the rest of the packets on the ground, empty. 

He recognized that he had walked in on Fai in a position that Fai _definitely_ did not want to be found in and he didn’t know how to back out gracefully, especially knowing that very soon, Fai might be violently ill again and would need someone to help him.

“I-” Fai choked and he sounded for a second like the air had been knocked out of him. He set the half-empty packet of blood down on the ground with jerky hands and looked around himself, like he was seeing himself for the first time through Kurogane’s eyes. His face was going white. He reached up, his hand starting to shake rather violently, and smeared the blood off his mouth. “I-I, t-thought you were asleep-”

Kurogane had to work fast, had to do something to make Fai not feel ashamed. Quickly, he dropped to the floor next to him so they were on the same level. Fai flinched away, still wiping at his mouth hard, even though it was clean now. 

“I came down for something to drink,” Kurogane said and then he reached out gingerly and took the hand Fai had been using to scrub mercilessly at his mouth with. It was streaked in blood. “Your face is clean, you don’t have to keep doing that.”

“Something to drink,” Fai choked.

“Are you going to be sick again? You need to tell me so I can help you.”

Instead of answering, Fai pulled away and started trying to clamber to his feet. Tears were starting to stream silently down his cheeks. Kurogane let him stand shakily and lean against the near wall. 

He gestured to the mess of empty packets on the floor.

“This-” he started desperately. “You don’t understand. What the. The hunger. Is like. I’m not like this. I’m not like this.”

“I know,” Kurogane said gently.

He wondered if he should have walked out the second he walked in, to leave Fai to his privacy, but then having walked in at all would probably still have caused Fai this panic attack and now at least someone was here to help him. Especially if he’d be sick. If he’d been so incapacitated after just _one_ packet, how sick would he be after _five_?!

“I thought you were asleep-” Fai kept saying. “You were asleep-” His voice was choked in a way Kurogane hadn’t heard before, like he couldn’t get enough air in.

“Hey, hey,” Kurogane tried to say calmly, gently. He stamped down his own panic to try and show Fai a calm face, but inside, he was screaming. “Breathe, it’s okay. You’re okay.” He motioned to move closer to Fai and Fai pressed himself closer to the wall. “You’re okay.” He remembered the way Fai refused to share anything with him, the way he said, ‘you’ll hate me’, and he tried to put himself in Fai’s shoes, tried to say what Fai would want to hear. “I don’t hate you,” he tried. “I don’t hate you.”

Fai scrubbed at his mouth again with the heel of one hand, like he thought the blood there would keep reappearing. His shoulders were heaving up and down, hyperventilating.

“I think you should sit down,” Kurogane said gently. “I think you might fall.”

“I didn’t _want_ to do that,” Fai said, his eyes on the empty packets. 

“I know. It’s okay.”

“But I could just _smell_ it across the _house_ almost!! And I was so hungry!”

“Wouldja please sit, mage.”

Fai slid down to the wall until his butt hit the floor

“Please tell me if you’re going to get sick,” Kurogane said. He inched closer. Fai didn’t react.

After a second, Fai nodded.

“Why would you eat something that would make you sick??”

Fai looked up at Kurogane’s face now, his tears still streaking his cheeks.

“I was hungry,” he breathed. “I thought, I thought, if it could, could make me not hungry for just an hour, or two hours, then, then-” He cut off and then scrubbed at his eye now, like he could punish it for the tears. “You don’t _get_ what the hunger is _like_ ! It’s not like how it was when I was a person. It’s so much worse. And I _told_ you not to _bring_ this here!!”

Kurogane inched closer and closer across the floor until he was able to take Fai in his arms again like he was able to earlier, when Fai threw up in his office. He was trembling like a leaf and Kurogane didn’t know if it was because the blood was starting to disagree with him or because he was just barely starting to escape this panic attack.

Was this Kurogane’s fault for walking in? If he’d just left Fai alone, would he have been fine?

Kurogane wasn’t an expert, but he knew Fai’s emotional state was… Not ideal. He didn’t know what to do. It scared him. What drastic thing might Fai do?? What other ways would he find to hurt himself, and could Kurogane stop him?!

Kurogane was a _vampire hunter_ , not a therapist! And he’d never even had a romantic relationship! He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to say. He just _loved_ Fai, that was all!

Oh, fuck. 

… Well, if he was going to admit it to himself at any time, why not now, huh? He almost laughed out loud. Because he _did_ . He loved Fai. Fuck, he thought again. What do I _do_?!

“It’s okay, I understand,” Kurogane said, because he thought that’s what he should say. He was rocking Fai back and forth just a little, frantic to comfort him. “I understand.”

“You’re right,” Fai said, pressed to him tightly. Kurogane could feel the reverberation of his voice in his own chest. “I’ll be sick again. You should leave.”

“What?” Kurogane said. “Why would I leave?”

“You keep having to help me after I eat something I shouldn’t,” Fai said and laughed humorlessly. “You don’t have to. You ought to just leave.”

“I’m not gonna do that.”

“Why?!” Fai cried and he sounded… Anguished.

Kurogane didn’t know how to answer. How could he put his feelings into words?!

Before he could figure out how to, however, Fai seized hard. Kurogane tightened his arms around him and Fai buried his face in the front of his shirt, his claws cutting through the fabric.

“It hurts,” he choked out. He motioned towards the sink and Kurogane tried to haul him up to bring him there, but his legs gave out halfway there and he fell to the ground on all fours, throwing up. Kurogane dropped to his knees frantically to hold him up as best he could. Tears were starting to prick at his eyes again. 

When Fai stopped, he almost collapsed, but Kurogane caught him and gathered him up in his arms. He was convulsing instead of shaking, much worse than last time. 

“Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong with you,” Kurogane finally burst, his teeth gritted and heartbroken, and tears spilled over his cheeks. “All I want to do is help you.”

In his lap, Fai was shuddering, and then he leaned over Kurogane’s arms and threw up again, gasping to breathe. 

“ _Please_ tell me how to save you,” Kurogane said and he leaned down and squeezed Fai to him tighter. “I don’t know why this didn’t work, I don’t get it.”

Fai rolled over in Kurogane’s arms again to see his face, twitching and shaking painfully.

“Just kill me instead,” he gasped. “I don’t want to be alive!”

Kurogane stared into his face and more tears ran down his cheeks.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Just… Tell me.”

Fai studied his face shakily and then reached up one unsteady hand, smeared in dried blood, and used it to dry Kurogane’s cheeks. He looked… In disbelief.

“I’ve made you fall in love with me,” he breathed in a voice that sounded a little like horror. “That’s… Unforgivable of me.”

“What the fuck does that mean?!”

Then, something clicked in Kurogane’s mind.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “I’m your true love.”

Fai’s face fell. 

“No,” he said. “Stop.”

“That’s part of your curse, isn’t it.”

“Stop! I’m serious!”

Kurogane set Fai carefully down on the floor and reached for the counter above them, for the knife block. There was no thought process in his head, just action.

“Kurogane, _stop_!”

“Then this will make you get better,” Kurogane said, all of it coming together in his head now. “This will stop you from getting sick, from starving.” Without hesitation, he pressed the tip of the blade into the side of his throat, the tender spot where Fai had drunk from a few days earlier.

“No,” Fai moaned. Kurogane scooped him up off the floor again and hauled him up, and then, something like instinct began to take over and Fai’s hands were on his shoulders and his mouth was on his neck. 

But this time, Kurogane’s arms were around his waist and Fai’s arms were slung around his shoulders, like some sort of unusual kiss.

After a few minutes, Kurogane gently pried Fai off, only a little dizzily, and gently wiped the hair out of his face and the blood off of his mouth. He clapped his spare hand over the wound, to stanch the bleeding a little.

“How do you feel?” Kurogane said, a little woozy but consumed with concern, and Fai threw himself on the ground, his arms over his head, and wept loudly.

photos taken moments before disaster:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the main thing i want you to take away from this drawing is how absolutely BUILT kurogane is. haha dont put a knife to your throat youre so sexy................  
> the next chapter will be from fai's pov, which is v easy to write from bc he just gets to gush abt how hot kuro is and i do that all the time anyway


End file.
